One Year Later, We’ll Have Another Seder

One of my favorite protest signs from last year read “Walker Like An Egyptian.”  I saw it the first day of what would turn out to be the month-long (if not longer) uprising in Wisconsin — the first such occupation in America during 2011.  Back then, demonstrators were still descending upon Tahrir Square in Cairo.  Scott Walker was and is no Hosni Mubarak, of course, and what had been (and still is) going on in Egypt was drastically worse than the portentous inauguration of the new Republican administration.  No doubt about it.  But what was happening in Egypt last year in February was historic, as would be our contemporary uprising in the Dairy State.  Was Madison the new Cairo, the state Capitol building the new Tahrir Square?  No, but the analogy was understandable.  So a sign that punned a 1980s hit song by the Bangles with the governor’s name while invoking a subversive political message was perfect: Scott Walker was like Hosni Mubarak in a sense, and what we had been watching on TV half a world away was now taking place in our own backyard — and we were there, in live time; and like Mubarak, who would eventually agree to step down, so too should Walker have.

And all of this takes on a new meaning with respect to Passover this year.  So with that in mind I am delighted to share with you unedited the very witty and well-done “Wisconsin Union Passover Seder Guide” penned by Ann Imig — just in case you thought Friday Night Fish Fry and gefilte fish were the the only crossroads between Sconnie and Ashkenazi.